The Cure: Go into the twilit woods, alone

I’m not going to tell you to touch grass, but if I were a doctor, I’d prescribe heading outside, sticking on your headphones, and marinating in music.

Seriously, turn off the news (it's only finger pointing and political pundits so lost in the data they have dehumanised the people), and let a serpentine melody slink itself around your brain as an antidote to the gloomiest of days.

For me, it's always the heaviest, saddest, or most beautifully grief-riddled music that matches bleak moments like this. (If you haven’t checked the headlines, I won’t spoil your day, but let’s just say that what's good for fossil fuel investors isn’t great for life on Earth). There's something about the eternal feeling of dread in melancholic songs that binds me to something far bigger than myself. Perhaps it's to our ancestors who in spite of everything, pushed back, conspired and fought for a better future.

Which brings me to my contender for album of the year...

I look up, and a moorhen stirs the grey silt beneath the dead leaves that drift slowly atop my local canal. The water is patient and still, except for the gothy birds little beak, flashing red beneath the water. As I get closer, it seems to synchronise with 'Endsong's disappearing guitar line. And it’s at this moment I inhale and realise how utterly immersed I am in Songs Of A Lost World, the first album from The Cure in sixteen years.

And I'm outside in the dark
Staring at the blood red moon
Remembering the hopes and dreams I had
And all I had to do
And wondering what became of that boy
And the world he called his own
I'm outside in the dark
Wondering how I got so old

Confession: this week’s newsletter, as you might have already guessed, was inspired by a spiritual experience. One that's up there with David Foster Wallace witnessing Federer in full flow. It was also about the discovery that - after a lot of research - listening to The Cure isn't best with the curtains closed or your eyes shut. Maybe this epiphany is a sign of the times or that I'm growing up. Or just that I needed to go get lost in nature.

Yes, this is probably already as overblown and self-consumed as the music writers you couldn’t stand in your youth. Thinking big and finding yourself writing when lightning zings through you is the critic’s curse. But... you have never really, never truly listened to Robert Smith’s voice, ricocheting between snares, awash in slow synths and menacing floor toms, until you've walked with it between the trees on a misty morning in the English countryside. There's nothing quite like it (and no, I wasn't listening to 'A Forest').